Good evening, here are the COVID-19 updates you need to know tonight.

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1. Wider vaccine mandates may need to be considered by provinces to continue fighting COVID-19, Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said on Friday
2. New poll shows Canadians strongly support booster shots, and many would like to see the Canada-U.S. Border closed to non-essential travel

In the past seven days, 293,224 cases have been reported, up 49% from the previous seven days.

There have been 304 reported deaths, up 104% from the same period. At least 5,491 people are treated in hospitals. Canada’s inoculation rate is 16th among countries with a population of one million or more.

Sources: Canada’s data is compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins, and the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data is from Johns Hopkins University.

Explanations on the coronavirus: Coronavirus in maps and graphs • Vaccine dose tracking • Lockout and reopen rules

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Coronavirus in Canada

• Pressure on from ontario hospitals are expected to worsen in the coming weeks as more staff are forced to leave work due to COVID-19 and more patients are admitted to care, said Anthony Dale, president of the Hospital Association from Ontario. He called it a dire situation. A number of Ontario parents choose to keep young children – who are not yet eligible for vaccination – out of child care centers due to a lack of safety measures. The province is offering a $ 10,000 grant to small businesses forced to close due to public health measures. Additionally, the chief of Bearskin Lake said the northern community is “almost at a breaking point” and is seeking help from the federal government as it grapples with a growing coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, Ontario is reporting 2,472 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, including 338 people in intensive care.
• Quebec Today reports 27 additional deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus and a 9% increase in hospitalizations linked to COVID-19. And, Montreal’s homeless shelters say they face a crisis as increased staff absences due to COVID-19 threaten to disrupt services during the coldest part of winter.
• Rankin Inlet, a community of about 3,000 people north of Churchill, Man., Is one of 14 communities accessible by air to Nunavut grappling with cases of COVID-19 believed to be caused by Omicron, which is spreading across the territory like no variant has before.
• New Brunswick Extending COVID-19 booster shots starting next week to residents 18 and older as long as five months have passed since their second dose.
• In Victoria, British Columbia, The police department is anticipating staffing shortages caused by the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and is moving all of its available officers to frontline policing duties.
• Saskatchewan residents are sending highly sought after COVID-19 rapid tests to their family members across the country.
• Prime Minister Jason Kenney says Alberta will not impose COVID-19 vaccinations in response to comments from Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. And, the province’s oil sands companies only operate with essential staff, about 40 to 65 percent fewer people than normal, as workers fall ill with COVID-19.

Provinces may consider implementing a broader immunization mandate to counter the increase in COVID-19 cases, said Canada’s Minister of Health.

• Given the fragility of Canada’s health system and the country’s aging population, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said he believed broader vaccine mandates would be considered by provinces in the future. over the next few weeks and months, while stressing that it would be their decision to Fabricate.

Booster shots: The majority of Canadians polled say they will definitely receive a vaccine booster, as Omicron leads to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases across the country.

The Beijing Games: Bringing the best Canadian athletes to China without testing positive for COVID-19 appears to be the first round of competition.

Coronavirus in the world

• Novak Djokovic may not be the only person hoping to enter Australian Open to risk withdrawal Australia, while up to three other tournament participants entered the country under the same exemption framework, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
• Two cases challenging the legality of President Biden’s vaccine or testing mandate for big business are before the we Supreme Court. Representatives from the Republican state and business groups called on judges to block the administration’s rule, arguing that the federal government had overstepped its authority by imposing requirements not specifically authorized by Congress and failed to followed the appropriate administrative processes to issue emergency regulations.
• With infections breaking records almost daily as the Omicron variant spreads Europe, the region’s economic growth is expected to suffer, even as governments have largely avoided the debilitating measures that crippled their economies a year ago.
• New modeling of Sydney, Australia shows a peak of cases by the end of January. The country experiences higher infection rates than anywhere else in the Asia-Pacific region. In Sydney, New South Wales, the Prime Minister postponed elective surgeries and reinstated the ban on singing and dancing in clubs and pubs.
• North Korea said “hostile forces” and risks from COVID-19 were the reasons he would not attend the Beijing Games, the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, although the country’s athletes were not already not eligible to participate.

The coronavirus and businesses

Canada has some of the strictest travel policies among the G7 countries, prompting travel groups to push for more relaxed testing restrictions for foreign travelers like other countries have recently done.

• “As we see the relaxation of other requirements, such as isolation periods, it looks like the easing of travel requirements should follow suit,” said Beth Potter, President of the Association of Canada’s tourism industry. “We would like to get to the point where you just have to do a quick test when you arrive and then continue. “

Also today : Over the past year, the number of Canadian workers has jumped by an estimated 885,000 – a record annual gain that has highlighted the economy rebounding from the depths of the pandemic-induced recession. But, Omicron threatens the next round of employment data.

And: Grocery store executives have received multi-million dollar bonuses as sales and profits skyrocket during the pandemic – even as they refuse to bring back ‘heroes’ pay for employees. Unifor National President Jerry Dias said that needs to change.

Also see: The highly contagious Omicron COVID-19 variant is a concern for Canadian food production, according to farm groups.

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Sources: Canada’s data is compiled from government websites, Johns Hopkins University, and the COVID-19 Canada Open Data Working Group; international data is from Johns Hopkins.

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